the historical image of king cetshwayo of zululand: a ...natalia.org.za/files/13/natalia v13 article...

29

The Historical Image of King Cetshwayo of Zululand

A Centennial Comment

One hundred years ago on the eighth day of February 1884 King Cetshwayo kaMpande of Zululand collapsed and died near Eshowe The manner in which he died is still an intriguing mystery The medical examiner at first suspected poisoning but no post-mortem was allowed by the late Kings retainers The official cause of death was attributed eventually to a heart attack although Cape Town and London physicians who had both previously examined King Cetshwayo differed in their opinions as to whether he had suffered from a congenital heart ailment or had died of other than natural causes Many Zulu to this day believe that the last king to rule an independent Zulu kingdom was poisoned by his enemies and died a martyr The career of King Cetshwayo was in life as in death one of conflicting interpretations and raging controversy In the past century King Cetshwayos place in history has been revised and indeed transformed by a succession of ideological and cultural currents flowing through the mainstream of South Africas historical literature 1

Cetshwayo was born about 1832 He was the eldest son of King Mpandes first wife Ngqumbazi At the time Cetshwayo was growing to manhood the region of south-east Africa over which his uncle King Shaka had once reigned supreme was beginning to feel the political cultural and economic impact of European penetration During the 1820s English hunter-traders from the Cape Colony established the first permanent white settlement at Port Natal In 1837 the Voortrekkers moved into Natal and thereby challenged Zulu sovereignty in the region The outcome was military defeat and civil war for King Dingane and the permanent alienation of Natal from the Zulu Kingdom In 1843 Natal was annexed by Great Britain and white colonial rule established During the 1840s and 1850s several thousand 2

British settlers immigrated to Natal and introduced a completely new and vigorous cultural element to that which previously existed among the northern Nguni particularly among the Zulu The nineteenth century western European capitalist world of which Britain was for so long the acknowledged master spread its cultural tentacles across Natal and Zululand under a number of guises

Natalia 13 (1983) Copyright copy Natal Society Foundation 2010

30 King Cetshwayo of Zululand

Nowhere was white culture more materially visible among the northern Nguni than in the field of trade Numerous manufactured items ranging from blankets and hoes to guns and medicine were incorporated into the material culture of the Zulu people White hunter-traders from Natal brought the products of western civilization into southeast Africa in exchange for local commodities such as ivory hides and cattle The expansion of3

European material culture into Zululand was accompanied by the equally expansionist social and religious norms of the European world Norwegian German and British missionary societies rapidly established a score or more of mission stations in Natal and the Zulu Kingdom in the 1850s and 1860s 4

The thrust of British settlement into south-east Africa had by the midshynineteenth century introduced a further new and unsettling dimension into Zulu society

The most disturbing and tragic feature of British imperialism and colonialism for the Zulu Kingdom was the unfortunate tendency of Europeans not only to justify but to sanctify territorial expansion and military aggression with an elaborate racial ideology supported by pseudoshyscientific social theory Thus the earliest historical and social literature on the Zulu Kingdom its people and culture was written largely by western European explorers missionaries soldiers and colonists who were much encumbered with the racial baggage that accompanied so many Victorian documentary narratives of African societies The first historical descriptions of the northern Nguni written in the English language were neither accurate nor flattering

White settler attitudes toward the Zulu in Natal and Zululand gave vent to the emerging racialism then currently in vogue in Britain Many British immigrants were no doubt familiar with the scientific literature then appearing on the innate superiority of the white European races over the dark-skinned peoples that inhabited Africa Australasia and North America The racialist literature emerging from the fairly new disciplines of ethnology and social anthropology was fashionable fare among the educated classes in British society The scientific racialists were opposed by a small but influential circle of liberal intellectuals and humanitarian churchmen who believed in the inherent equality of all men before God Many British immigrants in Natal justified their racialism by subscribing to Herbert Spencers social Darwinist school - that is those who applied Darwins laws of evolution and natural selection to the human species and in the process vindicated both scientifically and morally the Anglo-Saxon domination of the less advanced darker races Charles Barter prominent Natal settler and author of The Dorp and the Veld employed his Spencerian arguments to attack the liberal humanitarian view of Exeter Hall that the black man should be accorded equality with the white man 5

the two races the white and the coloured - be it black brown or red - cannot exist in close contact with each other but on one condition - that of the entire dependence of the weaker upon the will of the stronger The notion of equality equality of rights or equality of treatment is at best an amiable theory unsupported by a single evidence drawn from sound reason or experience

The fact that Africans should be subservient to Europeans was not incompatible with the principles attached to the settlers civilizing mission


Blacks were thought to be in an infant stage of cultural development and the Natal settlers considered it only natural and correct that they should maintain their superiority in all spheres of human endeavour in order to guide goad and if necessary coerce their childlike wards along the path to civilization That Africans far out-numbered Europeans in Natal lent an even greater sense of urgency to the civilizing mission The Natal Witness defined most accurately the settler communitys chauvinist perceptions of Africans

The other class of our colonial population consists of men in a state of infancy as regards civilization They are far more numerous than the Europeans and their numbers are likely to be increased by additions from the adjacent tribes Scattered over large tracts of country and unimpeUed by want they have worn their lives away up to the present time in slothful indolence to the full development of the depravity of human nature 6

The fact that the Zulu Kingdom had emerged out of the warfare and social upheaval of the Mfecane as the most formidable African military state on the subcontinent tended to arouse a keen interest in its affairs among white settlers soldiers traders missionaries and colonial administrators King Shakas stunning military conquests and the great slaughter of human beings that is said to have attended his empire-building campaigns left an indelible imprint in the minds of those first English traders to observe Zulu society during his rule Nathaniel Isaacs in his 1835 edition of Travels and Adventures in South-eastern Africa projected the first vivid and enduring racial stereotypes of King Shaka and the Zulu people to European readers7 The images painted were ones of African savagery at its most extreme and frightening Isaacs book contains lively and it is suspected grossly exaggerated accounts of Shakas unfathomable cruelty

King Shakas assassin and successor as King Dingane kaSenzangakona conveyed yet another negative historical image to the European racial stereotype of the Zulu - treachery When King Dingane had the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief and his thirty or so followers clubbed to death during their diplomatic mission to Zululand in February 1838 he thenceforth was singled out for particular moral condemnation by almost every white commentator on the subject Nathaniel Isaacs labelled Dingane as a complete dissembler while early historical and documentary literature on Natal and Zululand dwelt at length on the treachery theme 8 Thus the earliest white stereotypes of the Zulu monarchs appearing in the English language were ones which left the singular impression of a bloodthirsty Shaka and a treacherous Dingane After King Cetshwayos coronation in 1873 when Anglo-Zulu political relations were probably at their best Natals influential Secretary of Native Affairs Theophilus Shepstone employed white mistrust and fear of the uncivilized Zulu character when he rejected the Zulu governments earnest overtures for an Anglo-Zulu alliance against the Boers of the Transvaal Shepstone stated that it was futile and dangerous to enter into written treaties with savage nations

During the mid- and late 1870s Anglo-Zulu relations deteriorated rapidly as the British Colonial Office under Lord Carnarvon began to implement its confederation scheme British imperial policy in southern Africa shifted


from one of caution and administrative economy to one of expansion and consolidation Carnarvon envisaged the political and economic unification under British paramountcy of her colonies of Natal the Cape as well as the Voortrekker Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State Britain aimed its aggressive policy at most of the remaining independent African states including the Zulu Kingdom The successful completion of Britains confederation scheme called ultimately for the destruction of Zulu independence and their way of life

The greatest obstacle to British expansion in Zululand was the Zulu King Cetshwayo was equally determined to defend Zulu sovereignty against white intrustion and to maintain the status quo within the kingdom He held a deep reverence and respect for the cultural heritage of his people He made no serious attempt to alter the basic fabric of Zulu society in the face of European pressures on the spiritual economic and political life of the northern Nguni state He annually attended and presided over the important ceremony of the feast of the first-fruits rewarded and punished his subjects for deeds and misdeeds according to Zulu law and dedicated himself to strengthening those values on which the Zulu empire had been founded and flourished In keeping with the wishes of his people King Cetshwayo displayed little inclination to implement or even experiment with western European concepts of law and religion In cross-examination before the Cape Government Commission on Native Laws and Customs King Cetshwayo was asked whether he could alter the laws relating to the exchange of bridewealth in cattle or the system of ilobolo The King replied

No the king says he cannot alter a law like that because it has been the custom in Zululand he supposes ever since the nation was created Every king has agreed to the law and so must he The nation would say that anyone who tries to change that law was a bad king 10

Once King Cetshwayo made no radical changes in the government of the kingdom unlike his predecessors the Kings Shaka and Dingane he preserved the prevailing order as far as the political hierarchy was concerned The Kings two potential rivals and powerful section chiefs Hamu and Zibhebhu still retained much of their autonomy after they had professed their loyalty and obedience to the King Cetshwayo initiated no purges of his potential rivals and sought instead to reach an accord with his powerful kinsmen1l In essence Cetshwayo was a traditionalist

In 1877 Sir Bartle Frere the famous British Indian proconsul was appointed by the Colonial Office as South African High Commissioner Frere was an aggressive imperialist bent on crowning his distinguished public service career by subjugating the mineral-rich and strategically important independent territories of southern Africa

Sixteen days after Freres arrival in South Africa Sir Theophilus Shepstone annexed the Transvaal and events in that region came to occupy much of Freres attention As special administrator Shepstone attempted to win the loyalty of the Boers to the British Crown In order to accomplish this feat Shepstone felt that he had to convince the Boers that British policy placed the interests of Europeans above those of the African population The Transvaal Boers previously had laid claim to extensive tracts of land just as they had appropriated African-owned lands in the Cape and elsewhere Boer settlers had moved into Zulu territory following the Treaty


of Waaihoek in 1861 by 1873 the Blood River area was home to hundreds of Boers2

Shepstone reasoned that a successful pacification of the Boers depended on a demonstration of Britains will to recognize their claims by grabbing land belonging to the Zulu in the Blood River territory Frere was convinced by Shepstone that an independent Zulu kingdom did not serve the interests of confederation and that only by the complete subjugation of Zululand could union be realized The High Commissioner mounted an aggressive diplomatic and political offensive to persuade the Colonial Office that Zululand was a savage and barbaric state that threatened the stability of southern Africa To achieve his ends Frere used a variety of moral political and economic arguments to impress upon his superiors in London the barbarism of King Cetshwayos rule Zululand obsessed Frere and he capitalized on every incident and intemperate action committed by the Zulu as a pretext for justifying a punitive war

When King Cetshwayo granted permission to two Zulu regiments to seek their brides from female regiments in 1876 five unwilling young women were executed and scores fled to Natal The Natal Government sent King Cetshwayo a stiff message reminding him of his 1873 coronation vows to Shepstone not to shed blood indiscriminately The Zulu King had all along resented Shepstones gratuitous interference in the internal affairs of his nation Cetshwayo replied to Bulwers reprimand with a sternly worded warning to the British not to meddle in Zulu domestic affairs

Did I ever tell Mr Shepstone I would not kill Did he tell the White People I made such an arrangement Because if he did he has deceived them I do kill but do not consider I have done anything yet in the way of killing I have yet to kill it is the custom of our nation and I shall not depart from it Why does the Governor of Natal speak to me about my laws Do I go to Natal and dictate to him about his laws I shall not agree to any laws or rules from Natal and by doing so throw the large kraal which I govern into the water 13

King Cetshwayos expression of Zulu independence was interpreted by Frere and Shepstone as a further example of Zulu barbarism Frere invoked the prevailing racial stereotypes assigned by Isaacs Fynn Holden and other white commentators to the bloodthirsty Shaka with the vicious and calculated intention of saddling King Cetshwayo with the same negative reputation Frere mounted a propaganda war against King Cetshwayo He flooded the Colonial Office with correspondence that constantly compared Cetshwayo with Shaka Frere painted the worst image possible of the Zulu King and denigrated every facet of his character

I have not yet met in conversation or in writing with a single one who could tell me of any act of justice mercy or good faith or of anything approaching gratitude which had ever been related by a credible witness of the present King The monster Chaka is his model to emulate Chaka in shedding blood is as far as I have heard his highest aspiration4

Frere also capitalized on missionary discontent in Zululand and used their complaints of persecution against Cetshwayo to bolster his case for British intervention King Cetshwayo frowned upon missionary endeavour He thought that their teachings were seditious and that they gave aid and


comfort to misfits social outcasts and criminals Zululands missionaries were deeply frustrated because very few Zulu were ever converted to Christianity In August 1877 most of the missionaries fled from Zululand at the height of an alarm on the Transvaal border They did so on the advice of Shepstone who wanted King Cetshwayo to appear as the heathen persecutor of Christian teaching 15

Once in the colony the missionaries aligned themselves with Sir Bartle Freres drive to annex Zululand - a measure he considered vital to the successful completion of South African federation Capitalizing on missionary discontent the High Commissioner appealed for the overthrow of King Cetshwayos regime so that the missionaries civilizing work could continue unmolested The most militant and uncompromising of the missionaries were the Reverend Robert Robertson of the Anglican Church and the Reverend Ommund Oftebro of the Norwegians With unabashed cultural imperialism these men called for the abolition of those Zulu social customs that conflicted with Christianity Robertson wrote anonymous letters to the Natal press giving alarmist reports on the persecution of Zulu Christians and gave exaggerated accounts of the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Zulu by the Kings soldiers Robertson was particularly vehement in his criticism of King Cetshwayo and the Zulu ruling class He penned a number of reports to Natal officials condemning Cetshwayo for not honourshying the so-called coronation vows extracted by Shepstone in 1873 Once again the king was made to appear treacherous

The Coronation in my opinion well illustrates the character of Cetshwayo - it may be summed up in two words cowardice and cunning It has always been my opinion and of other Zulu missionaries as well that the King and his izinduna ought to be bound to keep the Treaty of 1873 - because it was proclaimed as I described above - with them as with us Silence gives consent and I cannot help thinking that his having rent the treaty in pieces before Sir T Shepstone was well out of the country ought to have been considered an insult to the English Government demanding instant satisfaction 16

When the Anglo-Zulu War broke out on 11 January 1879 there were certain individuals in Britain and the Colonies who believed that Freres invasion of Zululand was a blatant contradiction of the British civilizing mission in Africa and therefore morally indefensible They were representatives of the growing humanitarian movement in nineteenth century Britain The humanitarians injected the idea of collective moral responsibility into a British society that was largely influenced by an ideology of rugged individual capitalism and with it a creed that justified economic exploitation and glorified the military and political aggression that was felt necessary to secure and extend Britains imperial system Britains humanitarian movement emerged out of the religious ferment of the Great Awakening in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain This gave rise to Wilberforce and the great Anti-Slavery movement In Southern Africa missionaries and agents of the Church Missionary Society and the Aborigines Protection Society had long been active in reprimanding both the British government and white settlers and officials for having forsaken their

35 King Cetshwayo of Zuluand

moral Christian duty to Britains civilizing mISSIOn when they advanced policies that dispossessed the Africans of their land and cattle and forced them to become perpetual servants17

The humanitarians acted in the very controversial capacity as the moral watchdogs over white settler communities and their relations with the local African populace The development of mid- and late nineteenth century British imperialism and its scientific racialist ideology alongside the humanitarian movement with its emphasis on the closer equality of all men regardless of race or creed before God and the application of Christian moral principles as an implicit feature of the British civilizing mission shyreflected several basic social and ideological divisions between the Conservative and Liberal sections of British society The Anglo-Zulu War brought about a head-on collision between the imperialist advocates of the war and their Liberal humanitarian opponents over the moral justification for the war and over the conduct of Frere and Shepstone in fomenting it The extension of the ideological and political divisions of British society into the affairs of the Zulu Kingdom led to a dramatic rehabilitation of King Cetshwayos historical image

The individual responsible for the debunking of the negative stereotypes of the Zulu King was the leading humanitarian and most formidable intellectual and literary figure of colonial Natal Bishop John W Colenso He was an uncompromising defender of what he believed to be truth and justice according to the noblest principles embodied in the civilizing mission Bishop Colenso was a social evolutionist who unlike the hardened imperialists who employed this philosophical approach to expound on the savagery and backwardness of African societies believed that men of all races no matter where they appeared on the evolutionary ladder were part of the human family Compassion sympathy sensitivity and gradual evolutionary approach were Colensos priorities in his dealings with the Zulu people 18

The Bishop lost faith in the British government as he examined Freres correspondence with the Colonial Office The Bishop concluded that the war was a mistake a sad mistake19 The banishment of King Cetshwayo into lonely exile in the Cape and the terms of Sir Garnet Wolseleys Ulundi Settlement for Zululand (1 September 1879) was to Colenso the crowning act of infamy to this iniquitous war 20 The Bishop extended great sympathy toward Cetshwayo and lamented his exile While the King who if the war was unjust and unnecessary is assuredly a most innocent and injured man is a prisoner cut off from all friends all help without being allowed to speak a word in his defence 21 The humanitarianism of Bishop Colenso and his daughters Harriette and Frances produced a much more humane image of a man they believed to have been grievously wronged by British imperial policy in Zululand They looked upon the Ulundi settlement as a crumiddotel mockery of British justice and devoted their formidable political and literary talents to King Cetshwayos restoration and the dismantling of Wolseleys settlement

The move for Cetshwayos reinstatement as King of Zululand developed from three quarters First there was Cetshwayo himself an unhappy exile anxious to return to his former kingdom second there were the Kings


brothers - Ndabuko Dabulamanzi and Ziwedu-Mnyamana the former prime minister and the loyal Usuthu faction who saw a restoration as a means of regaining political and economic power from the appointed chiefs last there was the humanitarian lobby comprising the Colensos Lady Florence Dixie and prominent members of the Society for the Propagation of Gospel the Aborigines Protection Society and Liberal Party parliamentarians The King the Usuthu and the humanitarians operated as a political lobby in the context of metropolitan and colonial politics This pressure-group instituted a campaign to discredit several of the most powerful appointed chiefs and thus the Ulundi Settlement 22

King Cetshwayo and his Usuthu had little difficulty in publicising their case with the Colensos feeding reams of scathing commentary on the iniquitous activities of Frere and the appointed chiefs to British philanthropists and churchmen Bishop Colenso and his daughters Frances and Harriette singled out the Chiefs Hamu Zibhebhu and John Dunn for particular damnation and abuse Without reservation or qualification the Colensos accepted every accusation made by the Usuthu against the Ulundi Settlement as true Many of the allegations were indeed substantiated others were blatant distortions The Bishop published Cetshwayos Dutchman the account of white trader Cornelius Vijns experiences in Zululand to support Cetshwayos defensive actions during the war and to condemn the Imperial government and the appointed chiefs 23

The Colenso family wrote and published a number of substantial and detailed books which laid the full blame for the Anglo-Zulu War and its aftermath squarely on the shoulders of the imperialists Sir Bartle Frere Sir Theophilus Shepstone and Sir Garnet Wolseey King Cetshwayos historical image underwent a complete overhaul from Freres savage descendant of Shaka to Colensos noble martyr The Colenso publications that most effectively transmitted King Cetshwayos rehabilitated historical image were Frances Ellen Colensos two works The History of the Zulu War and its Origin co-authored by Colonel Anthony Durnfords brother Edward and published in 1880 and The Ruin of Zululand an account of British doings in Zululand since the invasion of 1879 which was published in London in two volumes in 1884 and 1885 Harriette Colenso shared her fathers inflexible moral convictions that King Cetshwayo and his only son and heir-apparent Dinuzulu were the victims of British imperial policy and the avarice and greed of Natals colonial officials and the white settler community at large Harriette Colenso inherited her fathers zealous spirit and much of his literary skill She wrote several notable works which contributed to the humanitarian revision of the history of Anglo-Zulu relations between 1879 and the early twentieth century Harriette published three works which all appeared around 1890 or shortly after the exile of King Dinuzulu to St Helena by the British authorities in Natal they were England and the Zulus Zululand Past and Present and The Story of Dinizulu co-authored by HR Fox Bourne24

The prodigious literary campaign of the Colensos and other British humanitarians to secure King Cetshwayos release and restoration began to bear fruit Lord Kimberley the Colonial Secretary found the Zulu Kings imprisonment an increasing embarrassment to Mr Gladstones Liberal


King Cetshwayo kaMpande tPhotograph Cape Archives C683)


government The Ulundi Settlement was showing itself to be unworkable amidst ever-increasing factional strife and bloodshed In September 1881 Kimberley granted permission for Cetshwayo to visit England and plead his case 2 The King took every opportunity in his correspondence with Kimberley to present the anti-Usuthu alliance as inimical to the wishes of the majority of the Zulu who wanted him reinstated Cetshwayo made an eloquent appeal to British Liberal sentiment I have great hopes of obtaining what the English people value - justice the Zulu nation would rejoice to see me back I hope that I am not going to England for nothing 26

The King and his party arrived in England on 3 August 1882 King Cetshwayo was dignity and charm itself on his historic mission to the nation that had desposed and banished him from his homeland He was well-versed in white manners and customs and his genuinely courteous manner in full view of the British public and Press went further in dissolving the hysterical racial images of savagery and barbarism that had been attached to his name than all the rehabilitative correspondence and publications of the humanitarian lobby Most crucial of all the Zulu King made a favourable impression on the politicans and ministers of the British Establishment who would largely decide his fate As a political mission and as a public relations exercise King Cetshwayos one and only visit to the United Kingdom was a huge success

King Cetshwayo did not allow the glamour of London to divert his energies from the single-minded task of returning to Zululand as King After a series of interviews with Lord Kimberley it was agreed that he was to be restored as King of Zululand though he would be under the supervision of a British Resident But under protest Cetshwayo reluctantly accepted Kimberleys conditions that Chief Zibhebhu of the Mandlakazi his most deadly rival be given a separate autonomous district in the north and that a Reserve Territory be carved out of the southern part of Zululand for Chiefs who did not wish to live under Cetshwayo and the Usuthu27 The humanitarian campaign to have Cetshwayo released from exile and restored to Zululand was indisputably their greatest triumph The revision of the Kings historical image along more humane and compassionate lines contributed in large measure to Cetshwayos favourable even enthusiastic reception in England

The humanitarian promoters of King Cetshwayo had scored an early victory with his restoration but the political forces arrayed against the king and his followers prevented Cetshwayo from ruling either effectively or in peace Several months after his return to Zululand in January 1883 King Cetshwayo and the Usuthu became inevitably locked in a life or death struggle with their deadliest enemies Chief Hamu of the Ngenetsheni section and the Mandlakazi section under the leadership of Chief Zibhebhu This full-scale civil war was ruinous for King Cetshwayo On 30 March 1883 Zibhebhus Mandlakazi inflicted a severe defeat on the Usuthu in the Msebe Valley The King returned to Ulundi where on the morning of the 21 July 1883 Zibhebhu launched a surprise attack on the Usuthu Kraals and decimated the ranks of the Usuthu leadership King Cetshwayo received two assegai wounds in his thigh during his flight after the battle 2R He was forced


to seek refuge with the British Resident in the Reserve and it was here that he died on 8 February 1884

Nearly eight months before King Cetshwayos death Bishop Colenso had taken ill and died The indefatigable champion of King Cetshwayos cause had become discouraged and indeed physically exhausted when he could not muster the political support necessary to influence Whitehall to intervene decisively in Zululand and restore Cetshwayo to a united Kingdom Thus died Sobantu the Father of the People as he was hailed by King Cetshwayo and the Zulu people 29 It is fitting that Bishop Colensos significant historical contributions are being commemorated in the centenary observances being held throughout Natal and Zululand in 1983

In the past one hundred years the popular and more serious historical literature on King Cetshwayo and the Zulu people has been influenced in varying degrees by the two divergent stereotypes which emerged out of pseudo-scientific racial theory on the one hand and liberal humanitarianism on the other Thus the racial stereotypes spawned by Frere and Shepstone came to influence H Rider Haggards historical and fictional literature on Cetshwayo and the Zulu The author of Zulu romances elevated the Zulu to a heroic stature comparable to the heroic primitives of Homeric Greece or the Norsemen of Scandinavia To Haggard the Zulu and their noble but savage King represented a stage of European civilization that had long since passed Haggard used his Zulu romances such as Nada the Lily and his historishycal narrative Cetywayo and his White Neighbours to identify the European past with the African present Out of such literature emerged vivid and enduring images which reinforced the popular white stereotype ofthe Zulu

To serve their Country in arms to die for it and for the King such was their primitive ideal If they were fierce they were loyal and feared neither wounds nor doom if they listened to the dark redes of the witch-doctor the trumpet call of duty sounded still louder in their ears31

Much of the recent history on King Cetshwayo and the Zulu Kingdom is contained in popular accounts of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 - a war that has continually appealed to the imagination of the European world because of its colourful romantic and heroic dimensions These largely military histories vary from the substantial and well-written The Washing of the Spears by Donald Morris to the weak and sensational story-telling in The Glamour and the Tragedy of the Zulu War by Clements 32 By focusing on the ~nglo-Zulu War greater emphasis is given to analysing and describing the formidable Zulu military machine in the process the more persistent Victorian racial stereotypes of a Zulu society absorbed in militarism were transferred to succeeding generations in the present day Morris who is fairly sympathetic to King Cetshwayo still reminds us in The Washing of the Spears that Cetshwayo made no effort to change the usages of his people the social fabric of the Zulus was still woven on the warp of cattle and the woof of the military system 33

The principal modern works on the history of the Zulu Kingdom and King Cetshwayo reflect the intellectual trends in contemporary South African historiography A History of Natal written by Edgar Brookes and Colin Webb was very much influenced by the humanitarian ethos of Bishop


Colenso and the modern eurocentric liberalism of South African academe and clergy Thus King Cetshwayo receives a more sympathetic historical treatment Certainly the most attractive of the line of Zulu Kings Cetshwayo had great qualities of character He was a powerful monarch and his methods were sometimes harsh but he never seems to have had the sadistic pleasure in cruelty of his three predecessors 34

More recently King Cetshwayos career has been incorporated into a totally different ideological perspective A rigorous material analysis rooted in European Marxist philosophy has been applied to the Zulu Kingdom At the heart of this analysis is an explicit focus on the productive and reproductive processes upon which a materially self-sufficient pre-colonial Zulu society was based This approach is embodied in Jeff Guys wellshywritten and richly documented studies of the Zulu Civil War of 1883-84 In his historical portrait of King Cetshwayo Guy emphasizes that

Cetshwayos Kingdom was in many ways unique in southern Africa While most African societies in southern Africa had lost their independence through military conquest or their economies had been undermined by colonial expansion the Zulu Kingdom had retained much of its political independence and economic self-sufficiency The Kingdoms economy was still based on the production of grain and the breeding and exchange of cattle35

In his substantial history The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom Guy identifies the aggressive and expansionist forces of nineteenth century British colonialism and capitalism as the destroyer of King Cetshwayo and the pre-colonial Zulu Kingdom

In essence the struggle which took place in Zululand between 1879 and 1884 was between representatives of the pre-capitalist and the capitalist social formations between representatives of the old Zulu order working for the revival of the Kingdom and those trying to insure political division as a prerequisite for subordination to capitalist production 36

In the final analysis King Cetshwayos historical image is of particular significance to the Zulu people of the present and succeeding generations The observations of Magema Fuze Bishop Colensos printer on Cetshwayos qualities as a monarch were recorded in his Abantu Abamnyama (The Black People and Whence They Came) This was the first major work to be written in the Zulu language by a Zulu author Fuzes favourable impressions of King Cetshwayo are most likely the sentiments expressed by the majority of Zulu

Cetshwayo was a pleasant person with a good presence handsome concerned for all his people and extremely kind in his speech when cases were brought before him of quarrels among his subjects He tried them justly and in the majority of cases reconciled the disputants not wanting them to quarrel and brought them together by directing that each should produce a goat to be slaughtered and that each should come to the same homestead and eat it together 37

In the twentieth century King Cetshwayos memory is still revered by the Zulu people King Cetshwayo is perhaps the most beloved of the Zulu monarchs His entire life was devoted to maintaining the sovereignty and social system of the Zulu Kingdom His valiant stand against the British


during the Anglo-Zulu War and his subsequent exile and successful campaign to be restored as King bespeak the nobler human qualities of tolerance statesmanship and considerable courage The great personal sacrifices which King Cetshwayo endured for the sake of his country and his people have not been forgotten by succeeding generations A truer reflection of King Cetshwayos place in history can nowhere be found than in the continuity of Zulu leadership over the past one hundred years The present Chief Minister of KwaZulu and President of the Inkatha ye Nkululeko ye Sizwe (National Cultural Liberation Movement) Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi is a greatgrandson of King Cetshwayo and grandson of King Dinuzulu Just as King Cetshwayo fought to preserve Zulu freedom and nationality one hundred years ago his descendants today carry on a struggle for lost liberty and in so doing invoke the name of King Cetshwayo as a symbol of inspiration and Zulu national feeling

NOTES 1 For an authoritative and well-written account of the history of King Cetshwayo and the

Zulu Kingdom during the Anglo-Zulu War and eivil war periods one must read the following Jeff Guy The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London 1979) and Jeff Guy Cetshwayo kaMpande c1832-84 in Christopher Saunders (ed) Black Leaders in Southern African History (London 1979)

2 EH Brookes and C de B Wehh A History of Natal (Pietermaritzburg 1965) Chapters Ill IV and V

3 C Ballard The Role of Trade and Hunter Traders in the Political Economy of Colonial Natal and Zululand 1824-1880 African Economic History no 10 1981 pp 1-21

4 The historical dimensions of early missionary endeavour in the Zulu Kingdom are admirably documented in Norman Etherington Preachers Peasants and Politics in Southeast Africa African Christian Communities in Natal Pondoland and Zululand (London 1978)

5 For a lucid analysis of 19th century British racial theory it is essential to read Christine Bolt Victorian Attitudes to Race (London amp Toronto 1971) The quote is taken from Charles Barter The Dorp and the Veld or Six Months in Natal (London 1852) pp 172shy173 Natal Witness 15 Januarv 1847

7 Nathanial Jsaacs Travels- and Adventures in eastern Africa 2 vols (Cape Town 1936 and 1937)

x Ibid vol 11 pp 200-204 9 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP) C-1137 Aug 1873 Report of the Expedition to

Install Cetywayo paragraph 4 10 Quoted in C de B Webb and JB Wright (eds) A Zulu King Speaks statements made hy

Cetshwayo kaMpande on the history and customs of his people (Pietermaritzburg and Durhan 1978) p 67

11 Brookes and Webb A History of Natal pp 98-100 12 Donald Morris The Washing of the Spears (London 1966) pp 202-206 13 CT Binns The Last Zulu King the Life and Death of Cetshwayo (London 1963) p 87 14 BPP C-2222 of 1879 no 58 p 266 15 Brookes and Wehb A History of Natal p 133 16 Natal Archives Colonial Secretarys Office vo 1925 No 19 Special Border Agents

Reports Robertson to Bulwer 28 October 1878

17 Bolt Victorian Attitudes to Race pp 83-139 1R Guy The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom pp 89-91 19 Ibid p 93 20 Ibid 21 Ibid


22 Charles Ballard The Transfrontiersman the Career of John Dunn in Natal and Zululand 1834-1895 (PhD Thesis University of Natal Durban 1980) p 314-318

23 Cornelius Vijn Cetshwayos Dutchman being the private journal of a white trader in Zululand during the British Invasion translated edited and annotated by IW Colenso

24 (London 1880) Bishop Colensos most analytically critical publication of British imperial policy and Freres

25 role is contained in his Commentary on Freres Policy (Bishopstowe 1882-83) 26 Guy The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom pp 133-135

BPP C-3247 of 1881 Enclosure in No 14 p 12 Cetshwayo to Kimberley 10 November 1881

27 Colonial Office Confidential Prints CO 879119248 pp 1-2 Restoration of Cetewayo Terms of 1882

28 Guy The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom pp 192-204 29 Ibid p 199 ~o An able summary of Zulu literary stereotypes is contained in Russell Martin British Images

of the Zulu c1820-85 Some approaches to a research topic unpublished paper delivered to the Southern African Seminar University of Natal Pietermaritzburg 1980

3l HR Haggard Child of Storm (London 1913) preface 32 WH Clements The Glamour and Tragedy of the Zulu War (London 1936) 33 Morris The Washing of the Spears p 282 34 Brookes and Webb A History of Natal p 95 35 Guy Cetshwayo kaMpande c1832-84 p 78 36 Guy The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom p 243 37 Magema M Fuze The Black People and whence they came translated by HC Lugg and

edited by Trevor Cope (Pietermaritzburg and Durban 1979) p 109

CHARLES BALLARD


Nowhere was white culture more materially visible among the northern Nguni than in the field of trade Numerous manufactured items ranging from blankets and hoes to guns and medicine were incorporated into the material culture of the Zulu people White hunter-traders from Natal brought the products of western civilization into southeast Africa in exchange for local commodities such as ivory hides and cattle The expansion of3

European material culture into Zululand was accompanied by the equally expansionist social and religious norms of the European world Norwegian German and British missionary societies rapidly established a score or more of mission stations in Natal and the Zulu Kingdom in the 1850s and 1860s 4

The thrust of British settlement into south-east Africa had by the midshynineteenth century introduced a further new and unsettling dimension into Zulu society

The most disturbing and tragic feature of British imperialism and colonialism for the Zulu Kingdom was the unfortunate tendency of Europeans not only to justify but to sanctify territorial expansion and military aggression with an elaborate racial ideology supported by pseudoshyscientific social theory Thus the earliest historical and social literature on the Zulu Kingdom its people and culture was written largely by western European explorers missionaries soldiers and colonists who were much encumbered with the racial baggage that accompanied so many Victorian documentary narratives of African societies The first historical descriptions of the northern Nguni written in the English language were neither accurate nor flattering

White settler attitudes toward the Zulu in Natal and Zululand gave vent to the emerging racialism then currently in vogue in Britain Many British immigrants were no doubt familiar with the scientific literature then appearing on the innate superiority of the white European races over the dark-skinned peoples that inhabited Africa Australasia and North America The racialist literature emerging from the fairly new disciplines of ethnology and social anthropology was fashionable fare among the educated classes in British society The scientific racialists were opposed by a small but influential circle of liberal intellectuals and humanitarian churchmen who believed in the inherent equality of all men before God Many British immigrants in Natal justified their racialism by subscribing to Herbert Spencers social Darwinist school - that is those who applied Darwins laws of evolution and natural selection to the human species and in the process vindicated both scientifically and morally the Anglo-Saxon domination of the less advanced darker races Charles Barter prominent Natal settler and author of The Dorp and the Veld employed his Spencerian arguments to attack the liberal humanitarian view of Exeter Hall that the black man should be accorded equality with the white man 5

the two races the white and the coloured - be it black brown or red - cannot exist in close contact with each other but on one condition - that of the entire dependence of the weaker upon the will of the stronger The notion of equality equality of rights or equality of treatment is at best an amiable theory unsupported by a single evidence drawn from sound reason or experience

The fact that Africans should be subservient to Europeans was not incompatible with the principles attached to the settlers civilizing mission























































































CHARLES BALLARD























































































CHARLES BALLARD

the historical image of king cetshwayo of zululand: a ...natalia.org.za/files/13/natalia v13 article...

Documents